The world's demand for energy is growing rapidly, especially now as the developing economies and industrial facilities of major countries such as China and India compete ever more aggressively for the world's limited supply of energy from oil, gas, and other fossil based fuels. Current approaches to reducing the demand for energy include improve the fuel economy of gasoline and diesel powered engines by government regulations and technological development, and implementing energy savings technologies such as improved insulation in homes, automatic set back thermostats, the growing use of wind and solar power as alternative energy sources, etc.
Additionally, it is known that agriculture and farming operations generate by-product waste materials that often are not processed and recovered to serve as alternative fuels or energy sources. This limitation results in additional wasteful consumption of the world's natural resources (forest, coal, oil, etc), and a lost opportunity to recover energy from renewable resources and thereby lessen the demand on fossil fuel reserves.
Another limitation of the use of oil and coal as an energy source is that often it is not formed and packaged in a consistent shape and size that is easily and safely handled. This is especially true when used in applications such as small furnaces, space heaters, etc.
Another limitation of the use of oil and coal is that fossil fuels are known to be in limited supply, and wasteful consumption of these fuels impacts upon and reduces the world's supply of available energy.
Another limitation of conventional fossil fuels is that the combustion of oil and coal is know to produce noxious gasses such as sulpher dioxide and release undesirable heavy metals such as mercury into the atmosphere. These noxious byproducts, as well as many others from fossil fuel combustion, are known to be noxious and dangerous in the environment. The use of arboricultural residues such as olive husks is known to result in a reduction of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, reduction of acid deposition in the soils and waterways, together with a beneficial improvement in income of rural communities by developing new uses for an otherwise low value arboricultural waste material.
Another limitation is that certain fossil fuels are toxic when accidentally released into the environment. Crude oil, for example, is known to kill ocean life and contaminate beaches when a spill occurs. Refined oils as well as crude oils contain various chemical forms of hydrocarbons known to be toxic to animal and plant life when accidentally released into the earth or into a water supply.
Therefore, vegetal based fuel for combustion which could be produced from agricultural waste byproducts such as olive husks, and which provides an alternate energy source and thereby reduces the dependence on and consumption of fossil fuels, and by its use reduces the generation of noxious gasses from combustion, would be useful and novel.